


Each Our Own Devil

by emmram



Series: Each Our Own Devil 'verse [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, EOOD 'verse, Gen, s6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-28
Updated: 2011-11-27
Packaged: 2017-10-26 15:10:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/284724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmram/pseuds/emmram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a bid to communicate with Lucifer, demons attack Sam and Dean and take one of Sam's eyes. Truths are revealed and the civil wars in Heaven and Hell come to a head as the brothers struggle to cope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2010 Sam-centric h/c fic challenge at the ohsam community on LJ, for rainylemons' prompt.

  
**  
_  
**Each Our Own Devil**   
_   
**   
  
**  
_  
_   
**

_This is how he thinks the world will end._

 _He's walking down an empty street, the gravel crunching loudly under his boots. The sunshine's bouncing off the windows of houses and windshields of cars, sharp and blinding. There's a thick silent haze over everything - too quiet, too neat, too much like a Sunday afternoon and nobody wants to get out of bed - and he walks through it all, searching, searching._

 _He turns abruptly and pulls open the nearest door. There's blood in the hallway, he notes, large pools of it, dark and congealing. It squelches as he walks, the rhythm strangely reassuring. Bodies are strewn everywhere, draped over couches, hanging from the ceiling, wrapped around banisters - bleeding from their eyes, lips, slashed throats, in a slow, viscous flow, although they should've been drained of all blood a long time ago. Their eyes open as he passes, tracking his every movement._

 _He stops in front of a large mirror, the edges of which is bare, jagged, dripping blood and decorated with strips of flesh. He reaches out, strokes his reflection._

 _"Sam," he says, and smiles._

 _The world will end in a shower of its own blood.  
_

* * *

 _  
_

"Just for the record," Dean says, waving his second burger at Sam, "I did _not_ eat this."

Sam looks up from his meal, eyebrow raised. "And that matters _why_?"

Dean actually looks taken aback for a second, before setting his half-eaten burger down. "No, I guess it doesn't," he says, deflating, and Sam just manages to stop himself from rolling his eyes (it's a very, very close thing). Dean was expecting dewy-eyed souled-Sam's answer. Of course. Probably some oft-repeated crap about 'healthy' food. That's just so much bullshit. How is he supposed to maintain a hunter's physique on rabbit-food?

"Sometimes I wonder how we managed with you going Bipolar all the time," he says. He gestures at the remains of Dean's meal. "You gonna finish that?"

Dean glares at him and takes a deliberate bite out of the burger. "So," he says around a mouthful of meat, "you spent all of last night on a lead, right? What's the story?"

"Well," he says, shrugging, "the omens are all over the place - any random supernatural fugly could fit the bill. Electrical storms, freaky weather patterns, the usual. _But_ \- there've been scattered reports of strange behaviour, an abrupt increase in the crime rate where these omens have occurred, so -"

"Sounds like a demon," Dean says, and his eyes glitter with anticipation.

"Yeah. Sure it does." Sam sighs and takes a sip of his coffee. "This is gonna take a lot of investigation, man, and it's not like serious damage has occurred. I mean, most of this is petty shit, a couple of murders, random assault, a few break-ins... it shouldn't figure high on our priority list right now, you know what I mean?"

"Unfortunately," Dean mutters before he gets that _look_ on his face again, squaring his jaw, lifting his chin, eyebrows pulling together ever-so-slightly - he's about to slip into lecture-mode, and while Sam hasn't felt exhausted in a long, long while, he feels annoyed enough to think he has every right to fake it now. "Dean -"

"No, Sam!" Dean brings his fist on the table in the first of what Sam is sure will be a long succession of dramatic overtures. "We're not going back for the skinwalker alpha right now, and we sure as hell are not going to hunt down Lucky!"

Sam frowns. "Last I checked, our first priority was still getting back my soul."

"Our first _priority_ isn't -" Dean sputters, and finally throws his hands in the air. "Look. This isn't about _priorities_ , all right? We are _not_ going to torture Lucky for information -"

Sam pushes his empty plate aside. "Fine. I get it. This isn't what _Sam_ would want to do, I _know_. But if you'd just let me, well, question Lucky properly, I'm telling you, I can figure out the Alpha's location."

He counts the moment of hesitation that follows as a small victory. "Let's not sugarcoat anything here, Sam, all right?" Dean says. "You're gonna torture the poor guy - and for what? We already got all we could out of him. There's no point."

"That's not true," Sam says. "We got something out of him last time, yeah. But given how the Alphas that we've seen so far communicate to their children through some freaky telepathy, maybe there's a lot more hidden inside Lucky's head than we know. Maybe it needs to be scooped out." He smiles. "And as you must know, Dean, pain is an excellent tool in that respect."

To his surprise, Dean laughs. "You're kidding, right?" Dean taps his forehead, still smiling. "You know, I was connected to the Vampire Alpha once, too. You gonna torture me?"

Huh. Well, since he's _asking_ , with all the insistence on straight-up honesty... "It's crossed my mind before, yeah," Sam says, shrugging. "But there isn't much use to that now, is there? Given the Alpha Vamp's already with Crowley."

Dean shakes his head and looks away. A long moment later, he seems to come to a decision. "We're checking this demon thing out." He gets up, pulls out his wallet and throws a couple of bills on the table. "Come on. Where did it start, again?"

 _Well, if this isn't just typical_. "Buchanan, Wisconsin," Sam says, getting up. "A murder and a spate of armed robberies, right after an unseasonal snowstorm - their worst yet."

"Great. If we leave now, we should make it by tomorrow morning." With that, Dean's already stalking to the door, all intent and swagger. Sam sighs - just when he thinks Dean's a pretty uncomplicated person, the man swings between the ends of the mood spectrum faster than a chick on PMS. There's got to be a better way to drive Dean out of distraction - Sam can't quite explain his own urgency to get his soul back, but he does know that they aren't going about it the right way. He needs to -

A sudden, sharp pain flares inside his head, just behind his right eye. He hisses, smacks the heel of his hand against his eye, waiting for the pain to subside. It intensifies, reaches a peak that has him stumbling, but disappears just as abruptly, leaving him blinking and breathing hard.

"Sam?" Dean's calling, wiggling his eyebrows in a way that Sam supposes is his way of showing concern while not actually appearing to.

Well, screw that.

"Coming," he says, and follows his brother out the door.

* * *

Sam's crying.

Dean can hardly believe it, but - he steals another look out of the corner of his eye - and _there_ , definitely there's a tear running down Sam's face, although the giant's just sitting there, looking straight ahead, acting completely oblivious. For a strange moment, Dean - Dean _hopes_ that, maybe, just maybe -

"You might want to pay more attention to the road," Sam tells him dryly.

\- yeah. Well, he ought to know by now that fooling himself isn't going to keep him sane, so he can't make any excuses. "Dude," he says. "What are you crying about?"

Sam reaches up to touch the moisture on his cheek, almost surprised. "My eye," he says. "I think something got into it - it's been annoying me all day."

"You, uh," Dean frowns, wonders if he's doing the right thing here, but finally says a big _screw you_ to his doubts because it's still Sam's body and he needs to keep it in good shape for Sam to get back into, "want me to look? I mean, if -"

"No, I got this." Sam fishes a handkerchief out of his pocket and presses it to his leaking eye. "How long before we're there?"

Dean sighs. _Of course. I don't give a damn about you and I don't want you giving a damn about me. Right_. "Twelve hours, maybe? We're stopping at a motel before we start, you know," he gestures expansively, "investigating tomorrow morning."

Sam snorts, and Dean thinks he might have even shot him a fond smile, but Dean probably just dreamed it. He's been dreaming a lot lately, and some crazy part of him thinks he's dreaming for _both_ of them, given Sam doesn't even sleep anymore.

Several hours and a warm, surprisingly decent motel room later, Sam's eye gets worse. It's red and congested and watering copiously. Sam stubbornly continues to press his already-soaked handkerchief to his eye as he maoeuvers his laptop with one hand. "This isn't normal," he says at long last, pulling the handkerchief away and squinting at it. "I think my eye's bleeding."

Matter-of-fact tone be damned, the words carry too many unpleasant memories ( _it's my secret in the mirror dean it's sam_ ) and Dean's off his bed in seconds and peering into Sam's face. Sam protests, giant hands batting at Dean, but Dean's seen enough: Sam's eye is _messed up_. It's so shot through with red that he can hardly make out the colour of the iris anymore; half-crusted yellow gunk rims the eyelids, and, of course, the kicker: the trickle of blood making its way from the corner and down the side of Sam's nose.

"What the _hell_ , Sam?" Dean exclaims, and oh yeah, Sam can sigh and look exasperated about it but _Dean's_ the one who has to see his brother's eye self-destructing. "Is this some kind of infection? Conjuncti-whatever? Can you see? What -"

" _Dean_." Sam puts the goddamned handkerchief back to his eye again and isn't that supposed to be unhygienic or something? "If it's conjunctivitis, both of my eyes would be affected, and you would've got it by now. And of course I can't see through all of this gunk, can I?"

Soulless or not, the patronising attitude certainly hasn't changed. "This is definitely not normal, Sam, maybe we need to -"

"I'll deal with it."

"I'm just saying, if this is some sort of supernatural shit -"

"Dean, _I'll deal with it_." Sam's clenched his teeth, his face suffused with blood, and he's giving Dean a one-eyed bitchface, if that were at all possible.

Dean wants to scream, wants to rip that sodden handkerchief aside, wants to get out and slam the door behind him like a teenager throwing a tantrum, but says instead, "Fine. If you're doing so well dealing with it, maybe you can figure out where we should start tomorrow," even as he flops back onto his bed and flicks on the TV.

Sam turns to the laptop. "We're starting off by playing meet-the-victim, figure out who's likely to be possessed - if it's a demon at all - and maybe figure out a pattern." He throws his head back, screwing his eyes shut. "Oughta be productive."

It turns out to be not quite as Sam predicted - by the morning, Sam's right eye is completely swollen shut, half his face covered in streaks of dried blood, more blood continuing to trickle out from under his eyelids. Sam still wants to come interrogate ( _I'll just wear shades or something and tell them it's conjunctivitis_ , he says. Ha. That's just so much bullshit), but Dean puts his foot down and refuses. He figures it's bad enough that a perfectly healthy but soulless Sam creeps the hell out of everybody around him, but a soulless Sam whose eyes are leaking blood? Yeah, not exactly an ideal partner when you're trying to meet already-traumatised people.

So Sam sits in the car while Dean goes and does the questioning; it's a little astonishing to think that it's actually been years since the last time he did this alone. They're barely through the first two on their list - storeowners, victims of armed robbery - before Sam says, "We need to visit the murder site."

Dean pauses halfway through inserting the key in the ignition. "Random," he says. "Why?"

"This is a trap," Sam tells him bluntly. "We've come this far; we might as well walk into it."

Dean blinks. " _What_?"

"Well," Sam says, his mouth twisting thoughtfully even as he replaces his bloody towel with a cleaner one ( _shit that thing's gushing this can't be good oh god_ ), "I've been thinking about it. Demons do random shit, but have you noticed that over the past year that they haven't been so random? I think it's because Crowley's in charge. I don't know. So this sudden spate of omens, completely random attacks? Kind of suspicious."

"That's enlightening, Sam, but what makes you think -"

"My eye, Dean." Sam smiles at him. "Whatever's happening to it? Definitely a curse, maybe a spell. It started off as headaches and flashing pains a couple of days back, but the closer we got to Buchanan, the worse the, uh, symptoms have, too."

Dean exhales heavily, shaking his head. "You know what? That's just _great_." He slams his palms against the steering wheel. "And _why_ did you think this wasn't important enough to, I don't know, at least _mention_ until now?"

Sam shrugs. "You were freaking out already," he says. "And I just, you know, finished figuring it out." He hisses suddenly, pressing the towel harder against his eye.

"You could be wrong."

"I could be," Sam says ( _but I'm not_ ). "There's one way to find out."

But Dean's already shaking his head; if this is a demon-trap like Sam says, then the rational thing to do would be to turn around and hightail the hell out of there. "Have you even looked in a mirror recently, Sam? Screw this shit, man - going ahead with this case is only going to make it worse."

Sam snorts. "I don't know if you've forgotten, Dean, but spells are usually reversed by destroying the source. We aren't going to get much out of running away - and I'd probably just end up as a half-blind liability."

"But -" Aw, shit. " _Demons_ , Sam."

"Demons, Crowley, spell, soul." Sam grins widely. "There's nothing to think about."

Turns out there's no arguing _instinct_ with a man who doesn't have any, so fifteen minutes later they're walking into a large abandoned warehouse (and Dean thinks he's had enough of _large abandoned warehouses_ to last a lifetime, but _no_ ), past the police tapes, with Sam nearly doubled over, both hands on his face, and Dean nearly vibrating with tension.

"You know, I'd feel better if we're doing this _after_ we scouted the place properly," he says.

"Wouldn't have made a difference," Sam says, his voice muffled and finally beginning to show some signs of strain. "They want us to be here."

"And you know that so well because?"

"Because he's one of us, silly," comes a new female voice, and Dean barely has time to turn and see the dark hair and the glittering eyes and the leather jacket and think _it's Meg what the hell_ and bring up his shotgun before something heavy connects with the back of his head, and white pain gives way to black nothingness.

* * *

When he hears her voice, the familiar sound of metal against skull and Dean's grunt, Sam knows he should be reacting; he half-twists his body in the direction of the sounds, but the pain in his eye ramps up until it blasts through whatever self-control he has left and everything is _pain-pain-pain makeitstop makeit_ _ **stop**_ -

Distantly, he feels fingers in his hair, clutching and pulling, and he staggers to his feet. There's a voice in his ear, low and hot and malicious, and he wants to respond, he wants to fight, he _wants_ \- but the pain is taking on a will of its own, shutting down his reflexes and rendering him completely useless. His one functioning eye is watering with the pain - which makes him, effectively, blind, incapacitated and without backup in enemy territory.

Sam's beginning to think Dean's luck is contagious.

"Glad you could make it, Sammy," Meg hisses into his ear. Her hands tighten their hold on his hair, invisible ropes are holding his arms to his sides and her lips ghost along the curve of his cheek, whispering something that Sam can only vaguely make out as a form of Latin. Or a mixture of Latin and Enochian? He can't - he can't _tell_ , and _dammit_ , he's better than this, he has to be -

He can hear more voices in the background - several males, maybe, but Dean's not among them ( _Dean's dead_ ) and the pain is rising, rising, taking - but, Meg still - he thinks -

\- and the voices fade and the darkness that was until now tinted with blood and specks of light becomes more complete, more -

" _Sam_!" He's startled into full consciousness as he feels hot, thick liquid sprayed on his face and Meg's voice rise in pitch and intensity until she's _screaming_ into his ear. A finger traces patterns ( _symbols, symbols, he should - he should - be able to - tell -_ ) on his face, harsh, short strokes along his cheekbones and forehead and around his eyes, and finally - the finger jabs into his ailing right eye.

Sam can't stop it now; he screams. The finger digs underneath the eyeball, crushing soft flesh and tearing into tissue. It bends, the pressure now in the opposite direction and _oh god they're actually scooping the eyeball out they're -_ he screams and screams and can feel the blood gushing can feel the pain can feel the horror of what they're doing to him can feel can feel _can feel_ -

Everything stops.

He's on a dirt lane, green fields extending as far as he can see on either side. It's calm, a kind of peace he remembers once wanting in a different lifetime. He stands absolutely still, breathes in, until he thinks - _knows_ \- that he is the absolute centre of the universe and it revolves around the axis that he's become. Everything is... _sharper_ , somehow, the contrast of the blue skies against greens and reds and browns of the soil acute and almost artificial. In this, in this simulacrum of a universe that contains him and Creation and peace all so intertwined one is no different from the other, he forgets. He forgets pain, he forgets betrayal. He just _is_.

The silence is broken by the sound of several voices, all screaming at once.

This is when the spectacle usually begins.

The ground shifts, rumbling and shaking like it's tearing itself apart. Fissure lines weave their way through, shaking and widening as the screams intensify. Blood - red and dark and eternal - bubbles its way out like lava through those cracks, and as the fissures grow into valleys and the valleys into sheer abysses, the blood becomes a roiling sea, churning out the mutilated bodies of the billions of humans who've ever been condemned to Hell.

He stands in the middle of it all on the sole piece of untouched ground, and feels the rage return to him.

( _these who are so easily destroyed were the cause of my destruction_ )

And so they will die... forever.

Suddenly he smiles, looks up, and speaks.

" _I see you, Sam_."

He raises his hand and snaps his fingers, and the world turns inside-out.

Sam wakes up to Dean's voice. _It's gonna be okay, I'm gonna get out you out of here, I'm gonna fix this_ -

Dean's crying.

Sam wonders if he should, too, discovers that he _can't_ , that he doesn't even _want_ to ( _that he wants to go back and swim in the sea of the blood of his enemies_ ), before finally giving in to a dreamless darkness.

* * *

Dean's almost sure it's another nightmare when he hears Sam screaming ( _an eternity and more in fire and pain and torture and_ ) but when a dozen other voices join it in laughter, he jolts back into awareness.

The pain in his head is the first thing that greets him: a dull throb in the back of his head that gets worse with every movement. But Sam's still screaming, the demons are still laughing, and even though his vision's swimming and a friggin railroad spike's being driven through the back of his head, Dean says a giant _screw you_ to all of it, and gets up.

The world shifts and blurs but he's already moving past the pain and the vertigo, blinking furiously, and there - right _there_ , Sammy, almost on his knees, Meg wrapped around his shoulders whispering into his ear, his eyes open and wide, mouth open in a pained keening. There's another demon in front of Sam, friggin' _finger-painting_ on his face with what looks like blood. Dean's just about gotten a hold on Ruby's knife and fished out a flask of holy water from his jacket when Sam stops keening and starts honest-to-god _screaming_ , an agony of the like Dean has never heard from his brother before, soulless or not. He looks up - _and holy shit, Sammy_!

Then he's rushing forward, yelling, ready to plunge his knife into the demon, but Meg looks up. "Just a little longer, Dean-o," she says, before he's being pushed back by invisible hands, slammed against the opposite wall, unable to move a muscle. Meg smiles. "Aw, don't look so angry, baby. After all, this isn't even really _Sam_ , is it?"

Suddenly the screaming stops; Sam goes alarmingly limp in Meg's arms, and there's a sickening wet _pop_ before the other demon turns, hand extended, palm open and -

\- there's a - a - ( _Sam's_ ) eyeball - and it looks like a bloody lump of flesh trailing - trailing nerves and coils of membrane - but it's - it's -

Dean struggles against the invisible hold even as bile rises up the back of his throat. "Stop it - _Sam_! You _bitch_ \- I'm going to _kill_ you, you hear me? I'm going to frickin' _rip_ you apart!"

Meg lets Sam fall to the ground and walks up to Dean, her smile dripping with smug contempt. "Your empty threats stopped being turn-ons a _long_ time ago, Dean." She tilts her head. "You see, when our master comes back? You can try all you want, but you won't be able to do jack-squat to _any_ of us. Because we're _his_ , and we _alone_ of all his creation, dared to think of a way to get him back!" She turns and gestures to the demon holding Sam's eye. "Now!"

The demon grins and slaps its palm against its forehead. Instead of the crushed bloody goo that Dean expected to see (and damn if the mental image doesn't make him want to puke again), the eye melds into the bastard's forehead and its jaw drops and its eyes go wide in an expression of pure rapture. "I see it," it says, and its eyes, the eyes that aren't _sunk into its head like friggin' supernatural implants_ , are moving rapidly. "I see _him_!"

Meg smiles at Dean. "Let's see you stop this one, angel-boy," she says, and Dean feels her hold on him loosen. He collapses to the floor and he's barely scrambled to his feet, knife at the ready, only to face a mostly empty warehouse and an unconscious brother.

"Sam!" He's at Sam's side before he's even really aware of what he's doing, turning Sam onto his back, carding his fingers through Sam's hair. There's blood everywhere, smeared down his face, dripping into his hair, oozing from the bloody hole that was once his eye... this time, Dean can't help it. He stumbles off to the side and pukes his guts out.

He sits on his haunches for a long moment, trembling and sweating - just trying to get a grip on a world that's suddenly gone out of whack, just a moment, _just a moment_ \- his body awash with pain and his mind spinning with horror. That's when he hears Sam moan - a quiet, almost breathless sound that he might've missed over the sound of his own breathing, but Sam's _awake_ and Dean needs to be there ( _just like he never has been_ ).

"Hey - hey, whoa, Sammy." Sam's stirring slightly, eyelid fluttering, gaze glassy and unfocussed. Dean bends over him and says whatever shitty reassurances he can conjure up even as his own eyes fill with moisture. He presses the towel Sam dropped during the ambush against Sam's leaking socket, and Sam bucks slightly, mouth open in a silent shriek before his lone eye closes, and he goes completely limp. Sam feels cold, sweat slicking his skin, and when Dean presses his fingers against Sam's wrist, he feels a pulse that's way too rapid to be good. Shock? Dean's not sure ( _he's never sure_ ) but further triage can wait until he's hauled both of their asses to somewhere that's... less exposed.

So he ties the bloody towel around Sam's eyes, tries not to feel like he's in a slasher flick's version of a Halloween-party-gone-wrong, and hauls Sam upright. The giant's already listing towards the floor though, and it takes Dean a further three tries to get Sam leaning against him, one of his arms flopping around Dean's shoulders and Dean's arm around his waist, fingers through his belt loops. Dean's shaking and panting with the effort, and the pain in his head is getting intense enough that he's seeing white flashes at the edges of his vision - "Sammy? Sammy, c'mon, man, I'm not in any shape to be carrying your gigantor ass outta here..."

Dean shakes Sam slightly, and Sam's startled whimper as he's jolted back into consciousness makes Dean's guts twist painfully. _There'_ s a sound he thought he'd never hear from his uber-Hunter brother ever again, and as they slowly, painfully shuffle out of the warehouse to the Impala, it's like they've rewound six years and Dean's helping a Sam whose eyes are leaking blood and whose biggest issues are his girlfriend's death, a missing father, and vague precognitive dreams. How screwed-up are they that those issues sound like non-entities now?

He bundles Sam into the back of the Impala, his jacket under Sam's head, legs propped awkwardly against the door. Sam doesn't move or make a sound through the whole drive, but that could be because Dean can't hear a single thing over the rush of blood in his own ears. He doesn't know how they make it back to the room – there's instinct and habit, and then there's several lifetimes' worth of functioning while barely hanging off the edge, and Dean has no doubt which of those got them through to where they are right now: Sam, still knocked-out on the far bed, and Dean just a touch away from following him into oblivion.

Dean stumbles into the bathroom and dunks his head under the running tap in the sink. Blood ( _his and Sam's and demons' and angels' blood all mixed and the same and unnatural_ ) flakes off his face and hands and swirls in the dirty sink and Dean – Dean just doesn't what to _do_ anymore. It's up to him, always up to him to make the decions, to step back and take stock ( _kill sam save sam let him die a monster human revive soul michael hell war -_ ) and this? _This_ is where he thinks he's finally crossed his limits. He feels it in the way his body trembles, aches for the comfort of Lisa's arms where he just _is_ , and nothing more is expected of him.

Sam moans and shifts on the bed behind him, and Dean tucks all the longing and fear away; Sam's in pain, Sam needs him, and he falls into the John Winchester line of thinking as easily as breathing. He wipes the blood off Sam with a wet washcloth and replaces the blood-crusted towel around Sam's eyes with a fresh one; his brother remains unconscious all the while, shifting and sweating and grunting.

Sam's empty socket has finally stopped bleeding; cleared of blood and gunk that Dean really doesn't want to think about, it's somehow even more frightening to see the hole in his brother's face, the eyelid folded and depressed. Dean's stomach roils once more.

Sam's eye. Meg. Demons. _I can see him - master -_ Lucifer.

It's all starting again.

 _No_. Dean clutches at Sam's jacket, shakes his head. No. He is going to get them - he's going to get Sam through this. He's going to get his brother back - soul, eye, and everything, he's going to put Sam back together again, because that's just what he does.

He _will_.


	2. Part Two

_**_ Two _ ** _

Crowley lets go of the skinwalker's head; it falls to the floor with a wet _thump_. It leaves a trail of blood and a green... well, as best as he can guess, bodily _fluid_ as it rolls away. It makes for quite an unaesthetic sight even against the starkness of the stone floor; he bathed in blood for centuries, learnt to treasure it, appreciate it for the magnificence it is ( _all of everything you ever are and ever were in one rich, viscous flow_ ) and it pains him to spill the muddied blood of this... _animal_.

That's not to say the torture itself wasn't satisfying on some level, of course.

He saunters to the table at the far end, cleans the blood off his hands before pouring himself a glass of whiskey. He raises the glass to the headless body still bound to the chair in the centre of the room. "To the things we do in the name of democracy," he says, and takes a long drink. The long-desensitised throat of his dead host barely responds to the burn of alcohol anymore, but it's the principle of the thing. He's always been about principle.

"That was remarkably efficient."

Crowley raises an eyebrow at the angel that's materialised in the room - his _private_ torture chamber, thank you very much, and really, one would think God's soldiers would have a better sense of propriety - before inclining his head in an aborted bow. "I do try," he says, and takes another sip. "Everybody's so focussed on torture as an art form, they forget that it is originally - and more effectively - used as a tool."

Balthazar smiles and crouches by the skinwalker's head. "When efficiency itself is an art," he says, dragging a finger through the congealing blood, "what's to complain about?" He looks up. "Unfortunately, there is usually not much of either in your work. Was today an exception?"

Crowley drains the rest of the glass and tries to remember what angel-blood tastes like. Probably like sugar-syrup, that burns through your insides like liquid fire. "Today was more productive than usual, I will admit," he says. "These monsters seem to be some sort of psychic pack-animals. They respond to the signals given out by their leader, and so it only made sense that I could use that signal and this _thing_ ," he tilts his head at the skinwalker corpse, "to trace it back to the Alpha. And let me tell you," he adds, smiling, "mental torture hasn't been this much fun since I was stringing up greedy souls on the rack."

Balthazar gets up, his eyes still on the severed head, its disgusting, glazed-over eyes staring back at him. "So, still nowhere close to Purgatory."

"I'm sure -"

"You misunderstand." Balthazar is suddenly just a few inches away from him, that infuriating smirk still intact. Crowley can see his grace, coiling like tendrils from every pore of his human host, and the air between them is charged, crackling. "I did not help you become King of Hell so that you can waste my time like this. Lucifer's supporters have already made their move." His smirk widens. "It's been a fun party, Crowley; I'm not about to let it get ruined because I have idiots for brothers, or because _you_ can't monitor your own kingdom."

Crowley smiles back at him, leans closer until the whiskey and sulphur on his breath coils with the burnt ozone that's uniquely Balthazar. "Let me make something perfectly clear, too," he says. "I do not serve you, nor do I owe you anything. We're merely partners serving mutual interests; ergo, we both do what we need to do to stop the Apocalypse from starting again, and we do it our own ways."

Balthazar laughs. "Well, I suppose I should be glad our ways are diametrically opposite, then." He backs away, his teeth gleaming crazily in the harsh light. "But let me tell you this, _partner_ : those loyal to Lucifer have already found Sam Winchester, and they know he is the key. Soon Hell is going to return to its natural order, and your promise of Purgatory isn't going to sway any of those black-hearted cretins you call your subjects." He tilts his head, eyebrows pulled together in a mock-contemplative expression. "And, oh, did I mention that Lucifer - being my one-time brother and the joy I remember him to be - will probably want to annihilate you? Just thought you'd like to know."

He disappears with one last, barking laugh, and Crowley's glass shatters in his hand, the pieces grinding into his palm as he clenches his fist even tighter.

It's demeaning enough that he once had to work with humans, Hunters – the _Winchesters_ , no less – to save his own hide, but to be forced to be still in the face of an _angel_ 's taunts? He wonders, not for the first time, if having dominion over all of Hell is still worth the indignity of what he's done and is about to do; but then again, no one has ever achieved true power without a shady dealing or two. Finding Purgatory is the key to everything, and he isn't about to let some washed-out, caged ex-angel destroy everything that he's spent _centuries_ putting together. With half of Heaven and his own kingdom bent on restarting End of Days, the odds are less than pretty.

He needs to find the Winchesters.

* * *

Dean isn't sure when he fell asleep - probably in between wallowing in his own misery and failing miserably in self-treating his exhausted body - but it's Sam who wakes him up, which, hey, par for the course: Sam's pretty much been his sole reason to wake up every morning for quite an unhealthy chunk of his life. He forces his eyes open, squints as the world blurs and shifts before resolving into focus.

Sam's bed is empty.

Dean groans and pushes himself upright on his arms. There's an almighty crash and a string of muffled curses that come from the open bathroom, and oh yeah, Sam's in there, alright, and Sam's struggling and that's probably what woke Dean up. More crashes, more cursing (and only his geek giant brother can make up a curse that involves 'syphilitic goats', or something), and Dean shoves off the bed and staggers to the bathroom.

He finds Sam half-sprawled across the bathroom floor, hands clutching at the sink in a white-knuckled grip, while one leg is loosely looped around the toilet and the other foot is in the shower-stall. He's re-tied the towel at some point: it's draped diagonally across his face now, covering the – the, uh. _Shit_. No, Dean's not going to think it. Not until he's got sufficient amounts of coffee and a couple dozen painkillers.

Sam's still struggling to lift himself off the floor, his eye fixed on Dean in a watery, bloodshot glare. Dean shakes off his own aches and exhaustion and hurries forward to give Sam a hand, but Sam's already gotten to his feet. He sways in place for a few moments before shuffling past Dean, clutching at the doorjamb and the wall for support. Dean can only stand and stare like an idiot as his grievously injured – _dammit_ , he's going to have to say it, his _one-eyed_ brother weaves his way to the bed and all but collapses onto it, throwing his head back on the pillow with a groan. There's a fine sheen of sweat on his neck, chest heaving gently, as if the simple act of going to the john and back had exhausted him. _Shit, shit_ – the kid looks like he should be in a hospital, not in this dank excuse for a motel room with the moth-eaten bedcovers and the matchbox-sized bathroom.

It's the morning after, and Sam's still missing an eye and a soul; Sam's still suffering, and Dean's running on fumes and empty promises and _goddamit_ , he has to _do_ something ( _save him kill him save him_ ), but, really, he has no idea where to _start_ –

"Did you call Bobby?" Sam asks, his voice muffled by the arm he's draped across his face.

 _Bobby. Of course_. Even with the whole I'm-an-unfeeling-logic-machine thing going on, it's very like Sam to cut to the chase. Start discussing the next step, even if sometimes it made Sam an obnoxious and bossy asshole and plain sent Dean up the wall. _Call Bobby for help, Dean. Let's go to California and find the demon, Dean. We need answers, Dean. Let me say yes to Lucifer, Dean_.

"Not yet," Dean says, rubbing the back of his neck. He needs to figure out how he's going to approach Bobby with this; true, the man's going to rip them a new one for falling willingly into the demon-trap like two complete morons (and yeah, Dean's not too sure of his own reasoning in that one, either, except something raw and visceral and twenty-eight years old inside of him told him to give into Sam - Sam who seemed so sure of what he's doing, Sam who was pleading with him, and how can he refuse? He's come to hate that something), but at least they can trust him to figure out what mojo they tried on Sam, and hopefully a way to reverse it and get Sam's eye back.

Sam makes this little exasperated snort, and instinctively Dean's hackles go up. "Well, excuse me for being a little too busy making sure you didn't bleed to death to be sitting around making phone calls."

"Quit pulling the drama queen routine, Dean," Sam says, and yeah, screw sensitivity and painkillers and all that crap; all Dean wants to do now is to grab at Sam's collar and shake him and tell him that _he's just lost an eye_ , and he shouldn't be friggin' acting like he'd just stubbed his toe. "I think I can remember some of the chants that they used," Sam continues thoughtfully. "Maybe Bobby can check it out, tell us something that'll – hey." He removes the arm and raises his head to squint at Dean. "They drew sigils on my face, right? Do you remember any of them? Maybe we can figure out the set-up of the spell, a reversal –"

" _No_ , Sam!" Dean explodes, and Sam gives him a one-eyed bewildered blink (so, okay, maybe he's going to have to stop using 'one-eyed' for everything Sam does now). "Just – look man, we got ambushed and you had one of your eyes friggin' _popped-out_ by demons, like, what? Ten hours ago? You need to -" Dean sighs, runs a hand across his face. "We need to make sure you're okay, alright? You have to recover before we start talking sigils and spells and all that bull-crap."

Sam frowns. "But I'm fine, Dean," he says, and Dean's just about to tell him what he can do with his protestations of ' _fine_ ' when Sam continues, "I mean, sure, my head hurts like a mother, and, uh, it's going to take me sometime to find my balance again, but – I'm pretty sure I'm up for this, Dean."

Dean squares his jaw. "Well, I'm not. Okay? We aren't going anywhere until we get back from Bobby on this whole thing." He picks up his phone from the nightstand and flips it open.

Well, if that just doesn't have the bastard make that ridiculous snort _again_. "Dean," Sam says, shaking his head, "you know if this goes on much longer, I'm going to be a liability out there. I can't kid myself; I will be half the fighter that I was, half as efficient. Besides," and here the corners of his lips quirk in an almost-smile, "the other Sam's not going to want to come back to _this_."

And that's just _it_ , isn't it? It all comes back to Sam – not this Stepford version, but _his_ Sam, the Sam's who's currently suffering in Hell for the sake of the rest of the world. "Yeah, well, he's definitely not going to like it if you're going to make yourself worse, so it looks like I still win this argument. Do I make myself clear?" Okay, well, he didn't intend that to come out quite that harsh, but hey, this is robo-Sam after all, so he figures he gets a free pass on the whole don't-hurt-his-feelings thing. Sam, for his part, does not retort like Dean expected him to; he slumps further into the pillow, pressing the heel of his hand against the towel covering his eye – the towel that's now, thankfully, mostly free of blood-stains.

Yeah, so apparently, even if Sam can't hurt anymore, Dean's still not exempted from feeling guilty as hell.

"Christ, Sam," he says, throwing the phone on the bed and running a hand through his hair, "I don't know what's going on anymore, okay? I mean, it was already bad enough with you hanging around with no _soul_ and all the working-for-Crowley crap, but _now_ , with Meg and your eye and Lucifer –"

"Lucifer?" Sam interrupts. "What're you talking about?"

"Meg and her cronies? Working for Satan, apparently." Dean shakes his head. "One of those sonuvabitches took your eye to _see_ Lucifer, to try and bring him back. I mean, I've seen some seriously disturbing things in my lifetime, but that was -"

" _Dean_." Sam's voice is hard, almost excited, and he's now sitting up, his remaining eye fixed on Dean. "They were trying to – to _contact_ Lucifer? As in, form a link to Hell?"

Dean's not sure he likes the turn this conversation's taking; not with that disturbingly familiar manic glint in Sam's eye. "I don't know, Sam, okay? Meg was raving about bringing her 'master' back, and sure, it sounds like -"

"But that's _it_." Now Sam's not even paying attention to him; his gaze is fixed on a point somewhere above Dean's shoulder, and he's doing that partly-open-mouth panting thing that usually means Sam's having an eureka moment. "It all makes sense now."

"Y'know, it's okay; you don't have to tell me anything. I'll just sit in this corner wondering what the crap you're talking about."

"I saw Lucifer. Right before they finished the spell." Sam tries to get up, but slumps back almost immediately. He hangs his head, takes a few deep breaths before continuing. "I mean, I wasn't sure at the time, but just before I passed out, I saw Hell, I saw the devil, and... I think he saw _me_."

Dean feels a familiar chill twist up his spine. "Sam –"

"This is so crazy, man." Sam huffs a laugh. "I can't imagine Crowley's endorsing this, so – it's like a civil war Down There, too, you know? The Lucifer loyalists against the demons supporting Crowley in power."

 _Great_. Just when did their screwed-up lives become some sort of political drama? "And your eye was so necessary for this set-up because?"

But Dean already knows the answer; it's a truth that's sat inside his chest like a malignant parasite for the past three years, maybe even longer than that. "I'm meant to be Lucifer's vessel," Sam says, and there is a strange kind of wonder to how he says that, a perverse pride that twists Dean's guts and leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. "I'm his sword, his one corporeal link to this world. Plus," he adds with a sardonic smile, "I'm already half in the Cage. Of course the spell would need me."

Dean wonders when their lives began to mean nothing more than mere existence: a means to an end. Just how messed-up is it that they continue to be used as pawns in some sort of cosmic bitchfight, even _after_ putting Hell and the devil and the goddamn _Apocalypse_ behind them? "Okay, you know what? We should be ganking the whole lot of 'em. Crowley, Meg, every single one of those sons of bitches."

" _Or_ ," Sam says, his smile widening, "we can use it to our advantage."

Dean raises his eyebrows. "How?"

"Think about it." Sam reaches up and unties the towel. There's still some crusted blood and sticky yellow gunk lining his eyelid – the eyelid that's depressed and kind of half-raised, with nothing but black underneath. "They can use my eye to look into the Cage, to talk to Lucifer himself – what's to say that we can't do the same?"

Dean stares at him, not quite able to believe what he's hearing. " _What_?"

"It's not that difficult to understand, Dean." Sam snorts humourlessly. "What I'm saying is this: we know some of this spell, right? I bet if we researched enough – maybe ask Bobby to poke around his library, a few old contacts – we can get the original lore. Then we can _use_ that lore –"

"—for nothing!" Dean throws his arms in the air. "Jesus _Christ_ , Sam, we are _not_ messing with that shit!"

Sam looks away for a moment, takes a deep breath. "Look. I'm half-blind: as far as what we do goes, I'm effectively _crippled_ , alright? I can't watch your back, and you'll be too distracted by looking out for me that we'll both get killed within minutes." He shrugs. "It's not a particularly efficient way of going about things."

" _Particularly efficient_ –" Dean sputters. But Sam's talking again; lumbering on with no regard to what he's trampling like the freaky giant that he is.

"But if I – _we_ – can do this, then think about the possibilities, Dean!" Sam's voice is raised now in both pitch and intensity with a sickening enthusiasm. "I can _see_ what's going on. In _Hell_. We can literally have an inside-track on the civil war in Hell, on Lucifer's _plans_ for his _return_ –"

"Shut up, Sam." Dean paces to the other end of the room, trying to quell his rising nausea. This is exactly the kind of stupid, _stupid_ shit that he's always afraid of around this Sam. _This_ Sam takes the self-important, pseudo-noble, I'll-sacrifice-my-humanity-to-save-the-world kind of crap that the old Sam spewed to a whole new disturbing I'll-sacrifice-my-sight-so-I-can-be-a-supernatural-spy level. Well, Dean's not going to sit back and let him go through with it, not _this_ time. "We – _you_ aren't going to do _anything_. We're going to Bobby, maybe –" and now, _now_ there's a wild hope inside his chest, _why the hell didn't he think of this before?_ "—maybe get Castiel to get his feathery ass over here and do something about this! I mean," he turns to Sam, breathing hard, running his hand through his hair, "if there's someone who can do something about this, it's Cas! He can _fix_ you, man, and we don't even have to –"

"Right. Like Castiel's going to want to destroy something that'll likely be of great strategic importance to him." Sam's regarding him with that deadpan, you're-such-a-moron expression, no less infuriating and insulting even with the missing eye. "Dean, I can be _useful_. We didn't suffer for that long just to sit back and let all this start up _again_ , did we? If we take my other eye – if we do this spell – we're not only going to be better prepared to deal with what the demons are going to do, but – I can see where my soul is."

Dean just gapes at him; this is so far beyond surreal and ridiculous he thinks he might never find words for it. _Ever_. Sam takes the opportunity to plough on. "I'll _know_ where my soul is – and isn't that what you want, Dean? To get your brother back?" Sam rises from the bed now, still swaying like one misstep's going to topple him, but that glint in his eye hasn't diminished. "Why can't you see that we can turn this in our favour, make the best out of a bad thing?"

( _i'm just trying to take this – this curse, and make something good out of it_ )

"No." Dean's had enough of this shit. " _No_." Sam's already opening his mouth, ready to make another stupid justification, no doubt, and Dean – Dean can't take it anymore, he _can't_. He lets loose with a punch, catching Sam squarely on the jaw. His brother goes down like a sack of potatoes on the bed, out cold, and Dean's left standing there, breathing hard, no closer to a solution.

"I have to say, that's getting to be quite a habit with you."

Dean whirls around at the familiar voice, and groans. Why can't they ever catch a goddamned _break_? "Crowley."

Crowley smiles. "Hello, Dean."

* * *

Sam hasn't experienced this several times over the last year or so – maybe not more than a total of four or five times, he thinks – but drifting slowly back into consciousness is as unpleasant an experience as he remembers. His face hurts, his head hurts, and the pain muddles his thoughts – not exactly ideal when you're almost constantly in the middle of one hunt or the other. He opens his eyes – _eye_ – with some effort, blinks a couple of times, still trying to overcome the disorientation that accompanies having about half of his field of vision blanked out. There's a gnawing pain where his eye used to be, a pain that becomes stabbing every time he moves his head too quickly, and it _itches_ – like there's still something in there and if he can just –

"You're a sick son of a bitch, you know that? It's not like you've screwed with us enough, _no_ , now you're trying to get _another_ deal out of us? No way. No freakin' _way_."

There's Dean, in full-on bluster mode. _Wonderful_. He supposes he shouldn't have expected anything else – Dean's angst-laden tendency toward denial is kind of the reason he'd tried so hard to pretend that nothing was different with him, in the beginning – but it's still annoying.

Another voice pipes up. "Well, it's not so much _another_ deal as it is a modification on the old one, but I fail to see how even your paranoid, moronic intelligence can't see that it's ultimately beneficial to you and your brother."

And that can only be Crowley. For a moment, Sam wonders how a demon made it into their motel room; they – _he_ 's usually much more meticulous than this, but yeah, considering what happened last night? He thinks he can forgive Dean for being too emotional to re-lay the goddamn salt lines. He just hopes Dean remembered to bring some of the weapons from the Impala.

He gets to a sitting position with some effort, only to discover he can barely move his right arm. He turns to look – almost bodily turn, because, oh yeah, he can't goddamn _see_ out of his right eye anymore – and discovers that his wrist has been _handcuffed_ to the bed-frame. He looks up in disbelief at Dean, who looks guiltily back. "I had to do it, Sam," he says. "You know I had to."

( _the demon blood was throwing you all over the place_ )

Sam tugs experimentally on the cuff before sighing. "Haven't we gone through this before, Dean?"

Crowley speaks before Dean can answer. "I'm sure I'd love to listen to your sexual adventures some other time, but Sam, I think it's your right to decide –"

"He's not deciding anything!" Dean interrupts furiously. "I mean, look. The guy's not in the frame of mind to be taking any healthy decisions, okay? If I say no, that's the end of it."

Crowley does not say anything; he merely raises his eyebrows at Sam, waiting.

Clearly, he seems to know something about the demon-spell and Sam's eye. He could be asking for the same thing, to try and use Sam to keep an eye on what his rebels are planning to do. But there's something _else_ to his demeanour that strikes Sam as just a little _off_ : maybe the way he's minutely shifting his weight from one foot to the other? Or perhaps the way his hand is worrying his shirt cuff?

"What should I be deciding about?" Sam asks finally.

Dean shakes his head and looks away even as Crowley's smile widens. "I've got your soul with me right now, Sam – you see, when I got you out of the Cage? I left your soul in Hell – in _my_ Hell, and brought _you_ back here. I can get your soul back to you, Sam, right here, right now – provided you promise to do something for me first."

"And what's that?"

"Open Purgatory for me." Even as Sam stares, startled, Crowley continues, "Yes, I believe I am as close as I can get to finding it – and when I do, I need you to open it."

Sam frowns. "But I thought you brought me back to help round up the Alphas..."

Crowley rolls his eyes and laughs. "Oh, please. What makes you think I'd ever entrust something that complicated to two backstabbing dunderheads like you? I saw what you did with the skinwalker hunt – and believe me, keeping an eye on you two is almost embarrassingly easy – and quite frankly, with most of Hell _and_ a family of Hunters under my command? Rounding up the Alphas is not really the issue." He walks toward Sam's bed, carefully skirting the area covered by the Devil's Trap Sam'd drawn on the ceiling the previous evening. "But you _are_ the key to the doors of most of Hell, Sam, including Purgatory – just like your predecessor, Lillith."

There's a dead silence in the room after that. Dean's still standing to one side, silently fuming. Crowley's still looking at him, part-smug, part-hopeful, and Sam thinks he knows what's off with Crowley right now: _desperation_. The King of Hell is running out of time, with half his so-called 'kingdom' still loyal to Lucifer. If they can somehow use this to –

"Sure," Dean says suddenly, "because the _last_ time Sam was used as a goddamn _key_ to some frickin door to Hell, it worked out so great!"

Crowley narrows his eyes. "Perhaps if you'd _use_ that coagulated mush in your head for once, you'd realise that I'm trying to prevent Lucifer from coming back too!"

Dean looks ready to let loose with a retort – or maybe more, his gun hand's twitching – but Sam cuts ahead of him. "Fine. If you can get my soul back right now – I will open Purgatory for you."

Dean gapes at him. "Sammy, no, you can't trust this bastard –"

But Crowley's already moving forward. "Just to make sure you don't go back on your word, I need a deal: if you refuse to open Purgatory later, or in any way try to deceive me, your soul is forfeit: it goes straight back into the hole – this time, with your body."

"Fine," Sam says, even as Dean throws himself at Crowley with a mangled growl. He's thrown back against the far wall, held by invisible restraints, even as Crowley leans forward and his lips meet Sam's in a kiss that tastes of sulphur, blood and expensive whiskey. Even as they're kissing, Sam's eye searches out Dean, who's staring at them with abject horror. He squeezes it shut and then open in a deliberate wink.

Crowley pulls back (finally; he was starting to use tongue, and Sam is pretty sure he wasn't very comfortable with that) and snaps his fingers. Dean clatters to the floor as a bright light fills the room. Sam throws his arm over his face, and when he is able to see again, the light has now coalesced into a single glowing sphere that's floating a few metres in front of his face. He barely has time to think _that's me that's who i was who i am who i will be_ before it's swooping down toward him.

A blazing agony starts up somewhere inside his chest: fire and acid, eating away at his ribs from a point right above his heart and radiating outward – he screams breathlessly, head thrown back, and, this is, this is, this is more than the pain of last night, more pain that he can possibly _bear_ , because it's like a vice that's caught hold of his most vital organs and is turning him inside out –

Merciful darkness closes upon him, takes the pain away, and then there is nothing.


	3. Part Three

_**_ Three _ ** _

Sam knows it's starting again.

* * *

There's a peculiar sense of déjà vu to this particular situation, Dean thinks. It's not like it's the _pleasant_ kind, either – not the kind where the cute bartender is fawning over him and he knows that if this goes the way of the past so many dozen times, he'll have her in bed and melting under his touch in two hours, tops. _No_. It's the kind where he's sitting in some run-down little room, staring at his dead brother, watching as the sole reason he dragged himself through day after endless day blinks out of existence – just like that, _poof_ , like so much roadkill.

Okay, so he's willing to admit that it might not be the _same_ thing: after all, he can see Sam's chest rising and falling gently as he breathes, and Dean's spent hours with a hand loosely wrapped around one of Sam's wrists, a finger on his pulse point. _Thump –_ your brother's alive, Dean – _thump_ – another day, another moment, and Sam's still _there_ – _thump_ – you haven't let him down, not yet –

It's been thirty-two hours since Sam got his soul back, and he still hasn't woken up.

Dean hates this, hates this waiting, hates that he has no idea what's going on with Sam, because for all that Crowley did his simpering 'Sam's-back-home-now' act, Dean knows he can't trust him. Most of all, perhaps, Dean hates that he has _no choice_ in the whole damn thing. Sam might never wake up, Sam might wake up a raving maniac, frothing and hallucinating and thirsting for demon-blood. Sam could – Dean doesn't really want to think about this, but denial hasn't done him much good through the years – wake up irredeemably altered by playing host to the devil.

Dean remembers how he felt after his own little taste of Hell. Thirty years of being tortured and ten more of doing the torturing – he remembers the nightmares, the memory-dream-memory where he's slowly drawing the knife over fresh skin, blood welling, red and rich and viscous, strangled screams echoing deliciously in his ears as he pushes his knife through the resistance of muscle before it's sliding into soft gut –

( _how_ _ **good**_ _it felt_ )

Sam's spent a century with the devil, and Dean wonders what he will see in Sam's eyes when he wakes up ( _sam's long gone dean_ ).

Somewhere around the three-hour mark, Dean had finally gathered his wits enough to pick up his phone and call Bobby. Dean isn't sure what he said – c'mon, it's _Bobby_ , the man's practically made a career out of deciphering the frantic ramblings of desperate Hunters, and his experience on the Winchester front probably makes him a friggin' super-specialist, or something – but given that Bobby kept alternating between _you moronic idjits_ and _calm down, Dean, we'll figure this out_ , Dean thinks he might have freaked Bobby out a little. But, what the hell, first Sam's _dead_ , then Sam's _off_ , then Sam's missing a _soul_ , and now Sam's missing an _eye_ and is in a goddamned deal with a demon _again_ – with all the freaking out that's due, he's only surprised that his hair hasn't turned silver already.

For the last eighteen hours, though, Dean's been praying.

He focuses on the rise and fall of Sam's chest, tries to lull his mind into the sort of meditative calm Sam used to lecture to him about, a million years ago. Sure, the pills he took for his killer headache helped, but he's _trying,_ here, okay? If screaming at the heavens doesn't work, and he doesn't have a random Heavenly Weapon handy to lure an angel down, the most he can do is put his heart and soul in prayer, and hope that Castiel is invested enough in that ' _profound bond_ ' of theirs to flutter down and give a damn.

But Castiel doesn't come, and Dean's beginning to lose hope.

( _what am i supposed to do, sammy_ )

When the nineteenth hour starts, and Dean's drifting off with the reassuring _thump thump thump_ under his fingertips, Sam wakes up.

It's not the dramatic snap-awake-with-a-horror-movie-gasp that Dean was expecting despite himself; he probably wouldn't have even noticed if he didn't have his hand wrapped around his brother's wrist (and here he thought _Sam_ 's supposed to be the emo brother). Sam's hand shifts underneath his, and when he looks up, Sam's staring at him with his one eye.

"Sammy?" he says, and there's ( _wonder and fear and relief and worry_ ) something clogging his throat, so he clears it and tries once again, stronger, higher, "Sammy, hey. You awake, buddy?"

Sam doesn't say anything, but now there's a tear slipping down the side of his face, and Dean feels something inside his chest twist painfully.

Sam takes his hand out of Dean's grip, and closes his eye again.

* * *

Here's how Sam knows it's starting again:

It's warm. There are days ( _years, decades_ ) when it's so cold that he feels like his blood is frozen in his veins, and those are the days when he lies on a field of ice and watches. He watches as two points of light in the sky swirl lazily around each other, before they pick up speed and momentum and _collide_ ; the light from the collision is like the death of a star: it burns bright, hot, scorching through his eyes and melting the ice around him, before the heat recedes away and he floats, sightless and empty.

When it's _warm_ , however, that's when the (blessed) emptiness goes and fear creeps in.

( _lucifer sees him_ )

When he wakes up to a forgotten dream, a faint memory –

( _lucifer remembers him_ )

Sometimes, it's Dad. Dad, sitting at the kitchen table, re-assembling his gun; Dean, watching him intently even as he pretends to study his Latin; Sam, curled up on the couch, working on the Algebra assignment that's going toward most of his Math grade for the semester. Usually, Dad wouldn't be too thrilled about Sam lying around doing schoolwork when there is so much he has to learn ( _fight-repeat-survive-repeat-kill-repeat-hate-repeat_ ) but it's a quiet evening, for a change. Sam's relaxed, frayed nerves settling, and wonders if he can escape the field of ice by hiding in his own mind, his memories.

That's usually when Dad swings the gun around and shoots him in the chest.

Even as blood gurgles from his throat and his limbs flail desperately, Dad steps up to him, lifts his chin with the still-warm muzzle. Dad's eyes are misted over, and he's smiling as he says, "I'm proud of you, son," before he pulls the trigger and Sam's brains spatter the wall behind him.

Sometimes, it's Jess and desperate love where they're slipping behind book-cases, huddling into dark corners, tumbling onto their bed, ripping the clothes off each other and it's warmth and passion and freedom flowing dizzyingly hot through his veins; then the heat becomes actual _fire_ , and that's it, Jess is on _fire_ , but she's still kissing him, still in him and around him and everywhere until _he's_ burning too, from the inside-out –

Sometimes it's Mom –

\- Madison –

\- _PamelaAndyAvaJakeMaxBrady –_

But mostly, it's Dean.

He thinks (the first two-hundred and twenty times, anyway; after that, he doesn't think much of anything) that Dean's the worst: his brother doesn't do _anything_. Sam's struggling; there's a – a miasma, something intangible yet so very _real_ that's creeping its tendrils down his throat and through his lungs and tearing through – and Sam's _calling_ , he is, he's calling for Dean who's right _there_ , though every word tears his throat until blood's dripping lazily down his chin, but Dean doesn't respond.

Dean sits there and looks at him with the kind of pity he'd probably reserve for a dying animal.

" _Dean, please –_ "

"It's okay, Sam," Dean says, and smiles. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

Dean watches as Sam chokes on his own blood.

( _you don't deserve to be saved you're a monster sam_ )

When this isn't on endless repeat, Michael and Lucifer merely choose to expend their frustrations on him instead of each other. _Then_ , it isn't warm, or cold; no field of ice or points of light in the sky. There's just pain, simple and raw, and after a few decades, the pain stops being punishment and begins to seem like escape.

An escape from –

( _this is your life, Sam Winchester_ )

It's warm again, now, and though the pain hasn't gone, Sam knows the devil's paying attention, and the loop has started.

He opens his eyes to blinding light.

Even after a century in the Cage, the pain is shocking; there's a stabbing inside his head, a sharp point trying to push its way out of his right eye (and he knows how that feels; there is literally _nothing_ Lucifer hasn't tried on him over the past century) and he can't _see_ ; there's only the light, and when did the ice stop and when did he –

His vision resolves slowly, the light fading until it's more annoyance than pain, and though the stabbing in his head hasn't relented, he can –

see –

see _Dean_ –

"Sammy," Dean says, and he looks _terrible_ : eyes rimmed in red and black, hair tousled and greasy, flakes of crusted blood around his temples. He's... _worried_ , his hand is on Sam's, the weight warm warm warm ( _help me not going anywhere sam die monster save_ )

The loop's started again, and Sam waits to die.

* * *

"Goddammit, Sam!" He isn't sure if it's healthy, safe, or whatnot, but Dean hasn't spent the last two days stewing in misery without food or sleep ( _or Sam or peace or_ ) for Sam to just conk out after waking up, so he reaches out and shakes Sam's shoulder, hard. "C'mon, Sam, don't you dare –"

Sam opens his eye again, and he stares at Dean blindly, more tears leaking. His lips are doing that twitching thing that Dean knows is a sure sign of Sam being upset, or in pain, or just plain bitchy, and – damn, it's just so like _Sammy_ that Dean can't help but feel a perverse burst of happiness. Sam's fingers are scrabbling, pushing away even as Dean tries to help him, and now he's saying something, voice so low that Dean has to strain to hear him –

" _no Dean don't stay please don't stay please_ –"

And damn if that isn't like a punch to the gut. Sam – Sam needs to _know_. He needs to know that he's back, and Dean's _there_ , and neither of them are going anywhere. He sits on the bed by Sam's side, clutches his shoulders and shakes him again. Sam's trembling under his touch, his whispered litany never ceasing, and if Dean's mumbling nonsensically too, it's only because he needs to make sure Sam listens to his voice, okay? "Sammy, c'mon, you're back, dude – you're here, and I'm here, and everything's gonna be okay, alright? Stuck with me for good, man, I'm not going to leave you –"

At this, Sam gasps and bolts upright.

Dean blinks; well, the dramatic movie-awakening's a little overdue, but he's willing to take what he can get. He tentatively squeezes Sam's shoulder – before his brother shudders, and proceeds to upchuck all over Dean's lap.

"Oh, Jesus – _dude_ , gross much?" He leaps to his feet, grabs a nearby towel and tries to wipe off as much of the vomit as he can before it starts to dry (and dried vomit is a _bitch_ to get out of denim, he should know). Sam sways where he sits, greasy mop falling into his eyes – _eye_ , goddamit, he should really stop this – before he's listing toward the bed again, and Dean rushes forward to catch him. Sam flinches and tries to twist away, but Dean's got a punishing grip on his biceps. " _Sam_ –"

"Don't stay!" Sam screams, voice breaking up like he's not used it in years ( _he hasn't used it in years_ ) before he slams a fist into Dean's gut with surprising strength. Dean's grip slackens as all air leaves his lungs, and Sam uses the opportunity to push Dean away and get off the bed. He stumbles and doesn't make it very far; he's barely taken a couple of steps before he's sinking to the floor, one hand pressed to his eye socket.

"Hey, hey, take it easy." And Dean's reaching for Sam _again_ ; he thinks Sam might even find his sudden touchy-feely mother-hen jag funny, though Dean's serious here, serious about holding onto his little brother because – because it's _Sammy_ , and that's all the reason he'll ever need.

Sam scoots away from him on his backside, his hand still against his eye, and – _god help him_ – fingernails scrabbling away around his socket, deep enough to draw blood. "Don't stay," he says breathlessly. "Go!" When Dean only keeps moving toward him, genuine _fear_ bleeds into his expression. " _Go_!" he screams. "Leave me alone!"

"No can do, Sammy, sorry," Dean says firmly, and lunges for Sam as his brother finally hits the wall. He grabs Sam's hands, pulls them away before he can mutilate himself further, and Sam doesn't stop _screaming_. He kicks and he heaves and shakes his head from side to side even as Dean tries to pin his limbs down, even as Dean tries to tell him that he's real _he is he is_ and Sam's not ( _not now, not_ ever) stuck Down There anymore –

Finally, after an eternity and a half, Sam seems to relent. He settles down, pliant in Dean's grip, chest heaving like he's just run a marathon. "Dean?" he says, voice small and _lost_ in a way Dean hasn't heard from his super-confident, independent brother, ever. His hands reach up, tugging on the lapels of Dean's shirt and then moving up to the sides of his face like a blind man's. "Dean," he says again and Dean thinks that maybe this is the point where he has to start the _I'm here, Sammy_ ramble up one more time, but he figures it's better this way: he's here, and Sam's here, and they find their way toward each other.

Sam looks at him, finally, all furrowed-brow and misty eye. "Dude," he says. "You reek."

Dean's mouth drops open. Trust Sam to come up with a way to dumbfound him, even _now_. "Yeah, well," he says, "I'm not the only one." Shit, that was a lame comeback – wait. What the hell is he doing, sitting there and thinking about witty conversation? "Hey, listen – you... you okay?"

Sam turns his head away. "I'm... you got me back. Here."

That's... not really an answer, but Dean's still on the don't look a gift horse in the mouth policy. "Yeah. I mean, it's kind of a really long story, but you're back, Sammy."

Sam nods. Maybe it's because Dean's expecting a _yeah, because 'a long story' is really enlightening_ complete with an eye-roll and a bitch-face, but when Sam just slumps further in his grip and tells him, "I'm sorry, Dean," it feels like another punch to the gut.

"What the hell are you apologising for?"

Sam blinks, opens and closes his mouth like he's searching for words, before he's pressing against his socket again. "Hurts," he says.

So, okay, maybe Sam's not up for linear conversation right now. That's okay; the man's fresh out of a century in Hell and back into his screwed-up Terminator body, and Dean's kind of surprised he got this much out of Sam in the first place. "Right," Dean says, getting up, feeling more grounded than he has in days. "Let's get you cleaned up first, then something for the pain." He extends his arm. "What do you say? Can you stand?"

Sam stares at Dean's hand like it's some sort of prop from _Aliens_. "I'm not an animal, Dean," he says.

Dean's barely begun wondering where _that_ came from, before there's a familiar _charge_ in the air, lifting the hairs on his arms and neck, a blast of air and a faint flutter – and sure enough, when he turns, Castiel's standing there.

"Hello, Dean," Castiel says, and Dean gapes at him for a few moments before finally finding his voice. "Well, hey, Cas, I'm sorry, I don't think we've got any Heavenly Nukes right now," he says. "Just, you know, the small matter of getting my brother's soul back; nothing terribly _important_."

Castiel narrows his eyes. His trench-coat is ripped, Dean notes, the sleeves spattered with blood. "I have been fighting a battle," he says, "that _you_ and your brother have just complicated. I got here as fast as I could."

"Right." Dean rolls his eyes. "Your civil war shindig. It's funny how we never hear anything about it, but it's always an excuse –"

He's cut off by Castiel's hand against his chest, slamming him against the wall. "I don't have to be a servant to your pervasive sense of entitlement," he says quietly, and Dean thinks he can see _Castiel_ – the actual deal, the burn-your-eyes-out light – coiling and twisting behind Jimmy Novak's eyes. "Raphael has finally gathered enough followers to launch an offensive against Hell, to try and release Lucifer and Michael." He lets go of him, and Dean scrambles to find his feet before he lands on his ass. "And now I have reason to believe that he will come after your brother."

Dean raises his eyebrows. The Apocalypse is supposed to be over; this shit's supposed to be _done_ with, and the cosmos _still_ can't cut his brother a goddamned break? "So, okay, now, _everybody_ wants a piece of Sam. That's just freakin' peachy."

"This has nothing to do with fruits, Dean," Castiel says. "Sam is still Lucifer's vessel, and the key to every gate in Hell; and he _will_ be coveted by every faction of this war. We need to get you both to safety."

"Nothing's safe," Sam says suddenly, and, as Castiel and Dean whip around to face him, he smiles. "Except the Cage. It's safe because he'll never leave – _never leave_ me, and I'm still there."

* * *

At first, the shadows scuttle like spiders from dark corners. Sam's vision is shot – half his field is completely blacked-out, and the half that he can actually see tilts and sways until his stomach churns and bile rises up the back of his throat. But the shadows are there, creeping, growing, and if he looks right over Dean's shoulder he can see a black tendril coil gently around his brother's neck, threatening, threatening, always threatening.

This is – ( _hell-earth-dean-dream-reality_ )

Sam wants to believe, so badly, that his brother's yanked him back up – somehow, except Sam is pretty sure he doesn't want to know _how_ , only that he is sorry, so _very sorry_ that he remains the reason Dean keeps selling his soul for – but sometimes, if he looks just right; if he squints his eye and blinks slowly, the half of his vision that's blank suddenly comes _alive_ , and he can see –

two points of light against a stark night sky –

shining down upon a sea of blood –

( _it's okay, sammy. i'm not going to leave you_ )

"Sammy? Sam, hey!" Dean must've started talking again; with no small amount of effort, Sam tries to ignore the other reality – although, really, how _can_ he, when it's meshing in with this reality and those shadows are growing – and focuses on Dean. "Dean?"

Castiel steps forward to stand beside Dean, and the shadow-tendrils retreat abruptly to their side of Sam's splintered reality. Sam stares, fascinated, as light literally _leaks_ from the angel, wisping off the host's skin and colouring every slow exhale. The angel is injured, exhausted, and the cracks are showing. He is sure Novak does not have very long if Michael was any indicator in the way he tore out of Adam in the cage, destroying him from the inside-out. There was not much of Adam to salvage, but somehow, Sam survived, like he always does ( _it always had to be you_ ).

"Sam," Castiel says, crouching down, "what do you last remember?"

( _and then i'd be whole again, like magic_ )

"Lucifer," Sam whispers. "I can still see him."

Dean lets loose with an expletive, but the moment's gone; Sam's losing this reality as the Cage and the shadows get bigger and bigger and consume his universe –

Castiel takes hold of his hand, his touch sure and warm, and Sam's yanked back. "Listen to me, Sam," the angel says. "I know you can still see the Cage, that Michael and Lucifer still haunt your every waking moment. But both Heaven and Hell want you, Sam, so you must survive; you must hide until you're strong enough –"

"Then make me so," Sam says. "Fix my eye; give me back –" _my life my sanity_

Castiel shakes his head. "I'm sorry, Sam, but this is something beyond even my means to fix. I might... only end up damaging you even more."

Dean makes a frustrated noise. "C'mon, there's gotta be something you can do, right? Fix his memory, his _mind_ –"

"If I could do all of that, Dean, I would!" Castiel snaps. "But your brother's wound isn't merely flesh that can be knit back together, Dean; his soul has been _ravaged_ in the Cage with the devil for _decades_ ; and it's been none-too-gently restored."

"But Crowley said that Sam's not been in the Cage, not for a long time –"

"Demons lie," Sam croaks.

There's silence in the room after that, heavy and pervasive, and Sam hangs his head, panting, as the stabbing in his eye starts up again. He feels Castiel's fingers against his forehead, lightly brushing aside his hair before settling.

"You will rest now, Sam."

Both of the realities recede into darkness as a deep calm washes over him, and he closes his eyes.

Sam sleeps.

* * *

 _This is how he thinks the world will survive._

 _He walks through streets – erstwhile battlefields – teeming with people, the injured and healthy, rich and poor, the young and old alike, searching, searching. There's a buzz in the air, the sound of sorrow and laughter and anger and joy and of... just_ _**being** _ _, under this sunshine that's bouncing off the windows of houses and the windshields of cars and the glasses raised to toast victory._

 _He turns abruptly, and pulls open the nearest door. There are people everywhere – children barrelling down the staircase as they laugh and chase each other, the adults smiling and talking and sharing, tending to old wounds with promises to cause no more. Their eyes follow him as he keeps walking: wary, but accepting._

 _He stops in front of a large mirror, smooth edges gilded with gold. He reaches out to touch his reflection, fingers linking across the glass._

" _Sam," it says, and smiles._

 _The world will survive._

 _**Finis** _


End file.
